Anthology will switch off every LTI 1.0 and 1.1 integration in Blackboard LMS on September 30, 2027. From January 1, 2027, administrators will no longer be able to register new tools on those versions, and after the September cutoff instructors and students "can no longer create new links or access old links" (Blackboard Community, 2026). The same date appears in Anthology's administrator release notes (Anthology, 2026).
For institutions running dozens of third-party tools inside their LMS, that turns a standards upgrade into a project with a deadline. This explainer covers what LTI does, how the 1.3 version works, and what to check before the cutoff.
What LTI is
Learning Tools Interoperability is the 1EdTech standard that lets a learning management system "integrate remote tools and content in a standard way" (1EdTech). When a student opens a publisher's courseware, a proctoring service or a video platform inside a course, LTI is usually what carries them there. It tells the tool who they are and which course they came from, and later carries a grade back.
The LMS is called the platform. The external product is the tool. Without a shared standard, every tool vendor would need a custom integration for every LMS, and every institution would need to maintain them.
Why 1.1 is being retired
LTI 1.1 secured launches with OAuth 1.0a message signing, which relied on SHA-1. 1EdTech formally deprecated OAuth 1.0a across its specifications and set June 30, 2022 as the end of its own support for LTI 1.0, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.2 and 2.0 (1EdTech, updated 2021).
The standards body ending support did not remove the old versions from LMS products. Each vendor sets its own date. Blackboard has now set one. Instructure's migration guidance for tool providers says Canvas does "not currently have an end of life date for LTI 1.1" and commits to at least 12 months' notice before one begins (Instructure Community).
How an LTI 1.3 launch works
LTI 1.3 replaces shared-secret signing with the 1EdTech Security Framework, built on OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect and JSON Web Tokens (1EdTech Security Framework). A launch runs in three steps.
First, the platform sends the user's browser to the tool's login endpoint with the platform's issuer ID, a login hint and the target link the user clicked. Second, the tool sends the browser back to the platform with an authentication request that includes a nonce to block replay attacks and a state value it will check later. The spec requires prompt=none, because the user is already signed in to the LMS.
Third, the platform posts back a signed JWT called the ID token. It carries the user's identifier, their role, the course context and the resource link. The tool verifies the signature against the platform's published public key and checks the issuer, audience, expiry and nonce before letting the user in.
The practical difference from 1.1 is that no long-lived shared secret travels between the two systems. Each side publishes public keys, and each message is signed and short-lived.
The services that ride on top
LTI Advantage is the name for three services layered on the 1.3 core (1EdTech):
- Assignment and Grade Services creates gradebook columns and posts scores back to the LMS.
- Names and Role Provisioning Services gives the tool the course roster and each person's role.
- Deep Linking lets an instructor pick content inside the tool and place it in the course as a link.
For these server-to-server calls, the tool requests an access token using the OAuth 2.0 client credentials grant, signing a JWT assertion with its own private key rather than presenting a password.
Registration and migration
Setting up a 1.3 tool traditionally meant an administrator copying client IDs, deployment IDs and key URLs between two admin consoles. The LTI Dynamic Registration spec automates that exchange. The administrator opens a registration URL from the tool, the tool reads the platform's configuration and submits its own, and the platform returns a client ID for the administrator to review and activate (1EdTech, 2023).
A migration claim carries existing courses across. When a 1.3 launch replaces a 1.1 link, the platform can include the old user ID and a signature derived from the old 1.1 shared secret, so the tool can match accounts without asking students to relink. 1EdTech's guidance says a course with existing links and gradebook columns can switch from 1.1 to 1.3 "without having to modify those links or apply any data migration" (1EdTech).
That depends on both sides implementing the claim. In Canvas, assignments, module items and collaborations migrate automatically, but rich content embedded in pages does not (Instructure Community).
What to check when evaluating a tool
- LTI 1.3 and Advantage support. Ask whether the product supports LTI 1.3 with Advantage, and which of the three services it implements. A tool that launches on 1.3 but still posts grades another way has not fully moved.
- Migration support. Ask whether the vendor reads the migration claim and maps legacy user IDs, or whether links must be recreated by hand. Blackboard's own guidance asks administrators to find this out from each provider (Blackboard Community, 2026).
- Data scope. Roster access through Names and Role Provisioning is a permission. Check which roles and fields the tool requests and whether it needs them.
- Dynamic Registration. Support for it reduces manual setup errors, especially across several LMS instances.
What commonly goes wrong
One known 1.3 problem sits in the browser. OpenID Connect uses browser cookies to confirm that the browser finishing the login is the one that started it. 1EdTech notes that inside an iframe "there can be many issues involved with setting a state cookie for this purpose." Its draft client-side postMessage spec lets the tool store state and nonce values in the platform's window instead (1EdTech, 2022). Whether a given platform and tool both support it varies.
Other failures are operational: an unowned tool inventory, links embedded in page content that do not migrate, and upgrades tested for the first time in production. With Blackboard's registration freeze starting January 1, 2027, the inventory is the part that cannot wait.